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Samsung Ads – Demand-Side Platform

410 points by amineazariz 6y ago

beprogrammed 6y ago
Now we need open firmware for our tvs
- demarq 6y ago
  You deserve a cookie :) You can't change the company, but we can definitely chose how we use their product
- cjwebb 6y ago
  How do we get started?
- CyberDildonics 6y ago
  Basic TVs are a power supply, a video board, a LCD screen, and a t-con board that can drive it. The power supply will also need to drive the LED backlight. Anyone could order the parts and put their own TV together, it really isn't as crazy as people think.
geerlingguy 6y ago
So you pay money for a television that displays ads. When will they pull a Kindle and sell special "ad-free" versions of so-called Smart TVs for an extra $100?
- vxNsr 6y ago
  which will still display ads sometimes, bec "consumers want it"
skizm 6y ago
I wonder if there is a market for dumb TVs. They basically don't exist today. Closest thing I could get was a Dell conference room monitor, which is $1200 for a 55 inch, and $4500 for a 75 inch. A far cry from the $700 I spent on my current 75 inch TV, but I'm strongly considering it.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- null_object 6y ago
  There are brands - such as Loewe and Bang&Olufsen - who respect the end-user, and make fantastic TVs. But people generally don’t want to pay the premium amount that they cost.
  - jmholla 6y ago
    I believe both of those brands can only be bought/received in their relevant stores of which there are few (my local Bang & Olufsen is permanently closed and I'm lucky to have had a local one) or none (in the case of Loewe which is only in Europe).
- gtsteve 6y ago
  A smart TV can be a dumb TV if you never connect it to the internet and just plug in whatever you want to it via HDMI. I have a 'smart' TV myself and the only buttons I use on the remote are power and input select. It's never seen the internet since I've had it. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before these TVs require 'activation' and frequent 'reactivation' before you can use them though. Alternatively they may perhaps start connecting to cellular networks, which would be a lot harder to evade.
  - lgats 6y ago
    TVs in China already got around this by displaying ads even when not internet connected.
    - fredley 6y ago
      How?
      - Liquix 6y ago
        Preloaded in the firmware/hardware perhaps?
marsRoverDev 6y ago
I now have ads on my expensive Samsung. Teaches me right for not heeding the advice and getting as dumb a TV as possible. I should not need to run a PiHole to deal with this.
indysigners 6y ago
I’d rather have no telly at all than buying some crap Samsung tv for €2.000 only to see their programmatic advertising. Whoever at Samsung decided this must be drunk! But hey, I guess there still are enough people around who don’t care.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  I bought a TCL Roku TV and thankfully the only ads are on the home screen where you select the input or app.[a] I can’t imagine watching video from an input and the TV deciding I want an ad on top of my movie. [a] I don’t delude myself into thinking this won’t change, but so far, I can just tune out (no pun intended) the ad on the side. Not to mention that the ads are of shows and movies, not products (which would be worse).
  - secondcoming 6y ago
    There are specs for in-stream video advertising [0], as in, the provider injects a 'commercial break' into whatever you're streaming. These cannot be ad-blocked. [0] https://www.spotx.tv/resources/blog/spotxer/server-side-ad-insertion-ssai-all-of-your-questions-answered/ https://www.spotx.tv/resources/blog/spotxer/server-side-ad-i...
    - gruez 6y ago
      They can still be mitigated. At the very least you can blank the video/audio while the ads are on. Personally I'd just get the pirated version, which has the ads cut out for me. If you already paid for the service I don't see anything morally wrong with that.
    - donmcronald 6y ago
      > It provides users with an optimal, broadcast-like viewing experience that often provides high-quality video and ad creatives. Optimal? Lmao. This is the point where I’d be willing to pay for pirated content.
  - ricksharp 6y ago
randorandomson 6y ago
I used to work in advertising, and it's remarkable how clueless and out the industry is about consumer feedback on this. There's constant back patting without realizing the actual ire shoppers have after spending $2k on a TV and still being sold as a product.
- hyperman1 6y ago
  It's wilfull. They havecto live ib denial, or they don't have a job. I know someone who started a job at a tobacco company. He went from 'of course they cause cancer, you're an idiot if you smoke' to 'everybody dies from something, it's not that bad, the media are against us, it's inconclusive'. He still won't smoke, though.
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    I’ve noticed the same with those who work for weapons manufacturers. The perspective changes a lot when the money is good or the mortgage is large.
    - tk75x 6y ago
      I would rather not work for a company that contracts to the government, but here I am paying my student loans with their money because that's the job that was available.
- GrinningFool 6y ago
  As long as people keep buying it, what incentive to stop doing it?
- egberts1 6y ago
  Abject denial by a thousand paper cuts.
HHC-Hunter 6y ago
Imagine paying for a device only for it to advertise to you. I would compare Advertisers are to parasites honestly.
- devmunchies 6y ago
  Its not the advertisers fault, it's the product people at samsung.
ascar 6y ago
This should just straight out be forbidden and regulation is the only way out of it. Voting with money is not going to stop this as all major players with high-end devices are pushing this. On top of it, this information is usually a nice surprise after you already bought and setup the device. To even further push the boundaries, they are adding (more) advertising to devices that have been purchased years ago!
- akerro 6y ago
  > This should just straight out be forbidden and regulation is the only way out of it. Ok, but also on the internet, radio and in newspapers.
  - yfy33 6y ago
    Best point in this thread and unsurprisingly, immediately downvoted by pearl clutchers. Just to be clear, you’re being downvoted for indirectly going after the livelihood of those who participate in this forum. Samsung getting into the game after SV Web taught them how to do it is making people realize, rather uncomfortably, that this is the world they’ve created now. It’s easy to abstract away commits to a repo when it comes to ethics, but remember, most of you reading this thread are at least complicit in building mass surveillance to make people who aren’t you more wealthy. You either work on it directly or sit at a company that works on it or participates in the ecosystem. That repulsion you feel for Samsung doing this is exactly how the rest of us feel now that your entire vertical is founded on trading my income and breast size and pregnancy status like I’m cattle. How you want microphones in every home in case I say “tuna would be nice” to make tuna magically appear 49 minutes later in a drone delivered package. How you’re perfectly comfortable tracking everything I do until it touches you when you kick back to watch TV. Then oh my God it’s horrible. Fuck your hypocrisy. It’s so transparent as to be hilarious. You can downvote me to silence me but keep in mind I’m just taking the time to tell you the other side. If you’d like to remain in a cushy bubble of “this is okay,” keep it up, but remember that you were warned you’re on the wrong side of engineering history and chose to attack the messenger instead of look inward.
  - ascar 6y ago
namanaggarwal 6y ago
Made a mental note to buy only the dumb tv. If I want streaming options I would rather setup my own. Or for non-tech I would recommend dumb tv + apple tv or Chromecast
- fredley 6y ago
  Absolutely. If forced (as in there are no dumb tv options that are viable), I'd reluctantly buy a smart TV, but I'd never let it actually connect it up.
  - checkyoursudo 6y ago
    This has worked for us so far. We don't watch broadcast TV, nor do we have cable/satellite. We hooked an internet-connected pi w/ kodi, and it's been going fine.
- mattnewton 6y ago
  It’s getting harder and harder to. I ended up buying a projector and a screen, large TVs are pretty much all infected with this kind of “smart os” and I don’t want a tv constantly asking to be connected to the internet so it can download adware.
  - junon 6y ago
    This. When I was in California I tried to find a 4k TV that was "dumb". It was impossible.
    - lostlogin 6y ago
      I’ve been contemplating a computer monitor and a sound bar. I would prefer to have a remote with on/off and volume but I guess I can use my phone for most of that.
      - ohazi 6y ago
        Where can you get a 55 inch computer monitor?
freakynit 6y ago
What the actual fucking fuck!!! I fucking paid for it. I own it. That's my property. Isn't this illegal of Samsung to do it?
searchableguy 6y ago
I am waiting for some manufacturer to add a camera disguised for remote work or something similar and then use it to pause ads when you are not looking. Spotify already does this.
- Macha 6y ago
  Spotify reads a webcam to hide ads when the viewer is not looking at the app? Or it pauses ads when the app is muted?
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    when you lower the volume too much, it pauses the ads.
    - hda2 6y ago
      What the fuck. I remember the "Please drink a verification can" joke that was floating around a few years back. Didn't think we'd be here so soon. Can you just use an old headphone with an audio slider and mute the ad that way? Either way, Spotify is now on my list of nope services.
      - DivisionSol 6y ago
        Wanted to comment on this. I see this very differently than the Samsung situation. Spotify provides music for ads, unless you pat the subscription. I am not offended that Spotify would do this for their “free”/ad-supported users. I pay for Spotify, I get no ads. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
        jnurmine 6y ago
        Exactly this. Paid subscriptions have no ads. Furthermore Spotify has a handy family subscription (not sure if valid in all countries), which covers several persons living under the same roof. Disclaimer: I'm extremely happy with Spotify.
manuelabeledo 6y ago
I keep seeing people who argue that TVs would be notably "more expensive" if they didn't come with ads. Let's say that the average Samsung TV costs $1,000, ad revenue per person is around $30 a year, and the average lifespan of a TV is 10 years. I own a Samsung TV since 2016. I think they may have pushed 5 firmware updates since then. There is no way I can be convinced that Samsung needs to increase the price of TVs by 20%. Also, if that's the difference, why can't I just pay more and opt out? And why are other users in other countries not being shown ads?
- pmontra 6y ago
  Users of TVs, wow. I remember when they were not more difficult to use than a door bell. I'm always more convinced that I'll end up with a monitor, a Raspberry, a stereo speaker and possibly a DVBT decoder.
  - gfxgirl 6y ago
    Do you know of a place to get an OLED (or better) 60inch 4k monitor that's a reasonable price?
    - pmontra 6y ago
      To be fair, I never thought about that: my current TV is 1080p 32 inches and I'm looking at it from a couple of meters. I wouldn't know where to place something twice as wide as that. Anyway, it's still OK and I hope I don't need a new one soon but I'll check the prices. Thanks.
  - matheusmoreira 6y ago
    Where can I get a monitor that's as good as consumer TVs?
    - bee_rider 6y ago
      You can't get a monitor that is good at being a TV, as TVs are. You also can't get a TV that is as good at being a monitor, as a monitor is. At competitive prices of course. They are designed for different things.
smartisass 6y ago
Someone in a previous thread mentioned Sceptre TVs. They are dumb. Incredibly low priced but quality models available (55" 4k HDR HDMI 2.0 for $300) [1]. They have 30yrs experience. Seems a good company. Have high-end models too. [1] https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV/U550CV-UMRD-55-4K-UHD-TV-product1174category1category73.html https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV/U550CV-UMRD-55-4K-UHD-T... Anybody here have one?
- adanto6840 6y ago
  I do. 75" version. Was budget price, decent picture. Only gripe is that it's slow to turn on versus my other TVs. Is otherwise solid, though isn't used often, but have had it for ~2-3 years now I believe and no major complaints.
- lostcolony 6y ago
  I had one ~eight years ago. It worked fine. Not a cinophile though, so can't really comment on anything there. Am a gamer; no noticeable smearing and no detectable input lag greater than any other TV. We ended up getting rid of it after a move caused it to get damaged. Only thing really of note I can remember was it was fairly heavy, but I never compared it against other TVs being sold around that time so can't say it was due to the brand.
- magicalhippo 6y ago
  > quality models They advertise the display as HDR but the specs say its brightness is a quite poor 280cd/m^2. A proper HDR TV should have quite a bit higher brightness. I consider HDR to be a far greater improvement in visuals compared to 4k, and something which made my jaw drop the first time I saw it at home watching The Reverend on my Samsung top-end model.
  - DiabloD3 6y ago
    You cant even get qualified as HDR below 400, and 400 is already ... a bit meaningless. Hollywood and TV authors content for 1000, and theres a mighty disconnect between these first few generations and what the content requires. To make this worse, my several year old U2414Hs can reach 280 at 100%. Those are inexpensive, standard, 1080p IPS office monitors, that have rather good color consistency for being low $2xx each... and also like 5 years old.
jeffbee 6y ago
Honest question: why is it appropriate for Apple to take 30% off the top of everything, but Samsung doesn't get 30% of Disney+ subs?
- rightbyte 6y ago
  I wonder what that stupid Rakuten TV button on my remote for "my" Samsung TV cost Rakuten to put there. I don't want a hardcoded quickbutton. I haven't seen any dashboard ads on it yet but that is probably becouse there is no regional service yet where I live. I wonder if this is worth it for Samsung in the long term to piss their customers off and get the image of a cheap rippoff brand.
  - Mindwipe 6y ago
    > I wonder what that stupid Rakuten TV button on my remote for "my" Samsung TV cost Rakuten to put there. I don't want a hardcoded quickbutton. It's basically mandatory for Netflix at this point. Unless you're a very major provider they really want Netflix will not certify a device unless there's a Netflix button on it.
- sarah180 6y ago
  Appropriate? That's the wrong question. Everything in the market is negotiable. The question to ask is why Apple has more leverage. (I think you will see the answer is "many, many reasons.")
- AznHisoka 6y ago
  They most likely do if you sign up and pay via Samsung (instead of paying in the Disney website and logging in via Samsung). However, that's probably not an issue for most people. The concerns people have is around obtrusive advertising in their home screen.
magicalhippo 6y ago
I bought the top-end 65" model from Samsung a few years ago. Judging by this my next TV won't be a Samsung. One thing is how annoying most ads are. Ad networks has proven themselves time and time again to be excellent attack vectors for all kinds of nasty. I don't want that on a device I paid thousands of dollars for!
junon 6y ago
I had one of those TVs. The ads show up in the menu bar. I called them and told them I paid over a thousand dollars for this TV and do not want ads. They said they'd be happy to help me disable my internet connection. I was so dumbfounded at the petty response that I simply hung up. Lost a customer for life. I will never again buy a Samsung product.
- munchbunny 6y ago
  This, and the built-in voice assistant, is why I have a blanket rule that the smart TV will never touch the internet. If I want to stream things, that can go through the gaming PC that's right next to the TV.
  - sunstone 6y ago
    I do the same except I use a small fanless NUC running Linux Mint which I control with the top of the line Logitech blue tooth "thumb ball" mouse. Aggravations vanquished.
    - MereInterest 6y ago
      Do you have any suggestions for a good mouse for it? I currently use a Logitech combination keyboard/track pad, but it has been connecting worse over the past few years, and I am looking for a replacement.
      - sunstone 6y ago
        Yes, I recommend the Logitech MX Ergo Plus trackball mouse. It's expensive but sometimes on sale. I like it because it doesn't have to "move around" like a regular mouse, so it can just sit on the arm of the sofa (or whatever). It takes about 2-3 hours to get used to if you haven't had a "thumball" before but after that you'll totally forget what kind of mouse you're using. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/logitech-mx-ergo-plus-wireless-trackball-mouse-graphite/6080600.p?skuId=6080600&intl=nosplash https://www.bestbuy.com/site/logitech-mx-ergo-plus-wireless-...
  - 6y ago
snarfy 6y ago
Samsung really needs to just flush their entire software division. It's all garbage. Their android software is a frustrating joke. Tizen is a hot mess. Every issue I've ever had with a samsung product was with their software, and it's why I've sworn off the brand as a whole.
- burnte 6y ago
  They make amazing phones, but yes, their software overlay is trash, IMO. I have a Samsung TV too and don't have it connected to the network so I don't have to deal with the smart TV crap.
  - bitlevel 6y ago
    Samsung's site selling Ads to those who buy them states clearly that TV's, Phones and Tablets are all monitored and viable options for delivery of ads, and the accurate determination of those who use them. See for yourself: https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/ https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/
    - ficklepickle 6y ago
      Their privacy policy is terrifying. They can access anything on a Samsung device. Some highlights: When you purchase a Samsung product, create a Samsung Account or register for or use a Service, you may provide us with personal information such as: -information you store on your device, such as photos, contacts, text logs, touch interactions, settings and calendar information -recordings of your voice when you use voice commands to control a Service or contact our Customer Service team -location data, including (1) the precise geolocation of your device if you consent to the collection of this data and (2) information about nearby Wi-Fi access points and cell towers that may be transmitted to us when you use certain Services. https://www.samsung.com/us/account/privacy-policy/ https://www.samsung.com/us/account/privacy-policy/
  - simooooo 6y ago
    Hardware is nice but the software is a minefield of dark UI patterns. I think my S8+ had 10 or more prompts I had to reject to not have my data absolutely scooped up. Still found it syncin photos to some cloud service
amelius 6y ago
At least we're not paying Samsung a tax of 30% of the price of TV-shows.
troydavis 6y ago
If you own an Internet-connected TV, you've been seeing these for 2 years or more. I submitted it 11 months ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21427405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21427405) and it wasn't new then. The ACR-based retargeting audiences (https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/resources/tv-ad-retargeting/ https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/resources/tv-...) are probably the most offensive. For example: "Reach viewers who saw your competitor’s ads as quickly as 60 seconds after linear ad airing." Since they're capturing and analyzing screenshots from all TV inputs (even HDMI sources), they can target based on not just what you're watching, but which ads you've seen. Games, movies, apps, whatever - they're capturing the actual image you're seeing in realtime. I maintain a list of deep links to opt-out of data collection and sharing, mostly just because it pisses me off: https://simpleoptout.com/ https://simpleoptout.com/ . My site includes all of the TV manufacturers and TV OSes, but Samsung is easily the worst. As I wrote: "distinctly less customer-friendly than its peer companies. If it can be retained and shared, it probably is."
- altdatathrow 6y ago
  ACR sourced data sells like hot cakes in the alternative data world. You can literally know what an individual (“anonymized”) person watches and when.
  - stevehawk 6y ago
    where/how does one purchase that data?
    - altdatathrow 6y ago
      inscape.tv (every vizio tv, that's why they're so cheap), nielsen (gracenote), ispot.tv, samba.tv, alphonso.tv, 605.tv, placed.com, truoptik, and others Many double as ad/analytics platforms but they'll gladly sell viewership data.
      - xtat 6y ago
        i once met the ceo of one of these and i cant describe on how many levels they seemed to be an outright tech and human hostile sociopath
notional 6y ago
So we can help you find and reach the missing millions - the cord-cutters, cord-shavers, cord-nevers and everyone in between We will find you and we will spam you. You can't hide from us. Were watching, were tracking. I really can't imagine myself ever buying a samsung tv. I mean they're quite blunt about their intentions, nothing to be surprised about when they're shouting about advising to cord cutters on their website.
fredley 6y ago
Reminds me of the Amstrad Emailer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_E-mailer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_E-mailer It started out with a few innocuous ads, then it got worse and worse until at one point it started displaying adult ads on a device that was on prominent display in people's homes. There was quite a backlash.
- rahimnathwani 6y ago
  I bought one of these, partly because the in-store advertising/info panel said it was capable of fax. I returned it the next day after unboxing it and discovering that the fax capability was actually just the ability to connect to an Amstrad-operated gateway, that used a premium-rate number, costing something like 50p/minute.
tombert 6y ago
I have purposefully not set up the smartTV features for any of my TVs, and on one of them I actually opened it up and removed the WiFi card. It's not exactly rocket science to plug in an NVidia Shield TV or an Amazon Fire Stick, so I don't really mind using those, but I don't like having any kind of implicit spying being done to me by my TV...I kind of feel like TVs should remain a "neutral" platform.
diegoholiveira 6y ago
That's why I do think we should ban digital ads. This didn't any good for humanity.
sarah180 6y ago
Inb4 Samsung+, a monthly subscription for those who want an ad-free experience. Recurring revenue is king.
- hda2 6y ago
  Don't worry. They'll add the ads back a couple of years later just like cable TV. Ads are far too inciting to be left on the table. Costumers be damned!
SoapSeller 6y ago
Don't connect your TV to the internet. I have ~5 years old Samsung smart tv. I've disconnected it from the network almost a year ago. I have cheap Android tv box for all my "smart" needs, I will probably replace it with a mini pc once it die. Those moves only makes me want more control over my setup.
johnnyAghands 6y ago
Sammsung can't even fix crippling a problem like not being able to adjust settings (https://eu.community.samsung.com/t5/tv/unable-to-move-up-and-down-in-settings/td-p/1671356 https://eu.community.samsung.com/t5/tv/unable-to-move-up-and...) -- they do not care about customers -- that's a fact. Also who the hell is saying TVs would be more expensive without ads? What a load of BS -- perhaps for small companies starting out, but Samsung? LOL I was on the fence about getting their frame TV, this pretty much kills it. Can something preconfigured like pie hole help sandbox these things?
- nickthegreek 6y ago
  My Samsung TV has 10,500 blocked connections from my PiHole in the last 24 hours and the TV is off most of the day.
  - colinmhayes 6y ago
    Probably because it spins on retrying when it gets blocked.
arafa 6y ago
I suspect that one day we're going to have to start logging into our TVs, and that will be a terrible day.
- mnw21cam 6y ago
  The ITV and Iplayer apps on a Samsung smart TV require you to log in before showing any content. That day has already arrived.
  - secondcoming 6y ago
    Don't they require that on the non-TV apps too?
buro9 6y ago
If you don't like this: 1) Buy an Nvidia Shield, Google Chromecast, or Apple TV 2) Connect that to your TV 3) Factory reset your TV and never connect it to the internet again
- troydavis 6y ago
  This really is the only viable option right now, and specifically only the Apple TV. The Shield and Chromecast are slight improvements, but of the mainstream TV choices, Apple TV is literally the only product that puts your privacy first.
  - drewg123 6y ago
    And sadly, you need to trade your freedom for your privacy with AppleTV. I have a shield so that I can sideload apps like NewPipe and Kodi. I wish AppleTV would allow side-loading apps. That would be the best of both worlds.
    - beagle3 6y ago
      Apple TV does let you. You just have to reload them once a week, or factor an additional $100 into the price to only do that only once a year.
      - Answerawake 6y ago
        Is a there a good collection of Idevice apps somewhere that we can take and compile and use for this purpose? I am starting to go down the path of making my own simple versions of popular apps like Twitter or pulling the backend apis of other apps for stores all in an effort to remove as much tracking as I can while still keeping functionality. For example, there is a popular convenience store app that gives discounts on items such as coffee but in addition to the standard tracking, I also discovered code that indicates they are using bluetooth beacons to do in store tracking. Instead I am pulling their api to fetch the deals so I can ditch the app. Would be great if there is an existing collection so I can ditch more official apps more easily.
barascar 6y ago
please don't buy such tv full of ads.
AznHisoka 6y ago
It seems most people's concerns are around obtrusive ads on the home screen. Which I agree with, as those are very annoying and takes up way too much sense. However, there is another component to Samsung Ads - the video ads on their Samsung Plus Channel. For those that don't know, this channel consists of free content (usually B-level movies, old TV series, etc). Why does anyone have a problem if Samsung puts ads on this content? After all, it does cost them money to license most of this content, and if you don't want to watch those ads, you simply don't watch that content. Not to mention Youtube and everyone else has the same business model.
- scrollaway 6y ago
  > Why does anyone have a problem if Samsung puts ads on this content? You're the only person mentioning this avenue in the entire comment section. Safe to say, it doesn't sound like people have a problem with ads there.
- effingwewt 6y ago
  I'll take a shot. People are just done with ads. My samsung S20 ultra costs me ~1300, and has ads on the phone, as in the native Samsung apps for everything. And since none can be installed I now have worthless bloatware I had to replace with ad free working alternatives. Samsung tvs are hilariously bad with ads all over. On neither item is it possible to flash this crap away or disable it. People love to tout things being free for our data, but this is paying over $1k to still have some of the most intrusive ads ever. You must own one of their products to watch their ads with shows thrown in (Samsung channel) and this means you have paid for access to that channel and are still being served disgustingly intrusive ads(as others pointed out they screen grab and send home images of everything you watch on any input)
- p49k 6y ago
  No one has a problem with Samsung putting ads on a channel with free content that you can choose not to watch. But to take screenshots of what you’re watching on your tv every 60 seconds, upload it to their servers, and use it to build a profile of you so that the ads on that channel can be more targeted should land some Samsung executives in prison. Furthermore, pushing an automated software update to put ads inside the user interface of the TV where they previously didn’t exist should be illegal as well.
TomGullen 6y ago
Lone voice here I guess - I have a mid/high range Samsung TV and love it. Picture quality is brilliant and it looks good on the wall. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an advert on it from Samsung - where are they appearing exactly? I just switch between terrestrial TV and various apps like Netflix and Amazon on the bottom navigation bar and don’t think I’ve ever seen one. Might be wrong though!
- GrinningFool 6y ago
  They show for me in the navigation bar. Usually they look like just an icon in the bar for service you might have installed - except you don't.
- Phillips126 6y ago
  Like you I also had a mid/high range Samsung TV. The ads were not as obtrusive being only on the bottom left of the menu bar, but its the ACR that I needed to get away from. > Samsung Smart TVs have built-in Automated Content Recognition (ACR) technology that can understand viewing behavior and usage including programs, movies, ads, gaming content and OTT apps in real-time.[0] Literally every second or two, Samsung was performing some screen reading data collection and sending it off to their servers. My Pi Hole was capturing 12,000 blocked requests from this per day (6-7 hours of shared family viewing). This resulted in a poor user experience where I would feel the actually latency when trying to navigate around or open the menu. After factory resetting my TV it was so snappy again. Plugged in an AppleTV and haven't looked back. This form of advertising is incredibly invasive and disgusting to me, with constant spying/screenshotting of the content I am viewing. [0] https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/resources/tv-ad-retargeting/ https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/resources/tv-...
- yarg 6y ago
  Samsung's hardware capabilities are impressive - quantum dot active matrix displays (for example) present a technology that is fundamentally superior to anything they compete with. However, they seem to be rampantly anti-consumer - not only selling user data, but overcharging on everything they sell. They also hobble their hardware with software designed by a bunch of shit-flinging monkeys. They're also perfectly happy to engage in whatever legally dubious practices that they can get away with.
Softcadbury 6y ago
Everybody's talking about TVs in comments, but Samsung also mentioned mobile, any idea of the form it can take ? And I guess the next step is cars, as they are also more and more connected...
effingwewt 6y ago
Someone needs to create a localized faraday field with adjustable size for shit like this. But then the battle continues and they brick the device if it cant phone home with an endless reboot cycle or something. Why is this blatantly anti-consumer behavior not illegal? Companies continue to show us nothing is beneath them except for us.
- lostlogin 6y ago
  Wired connections are so much superior. Pihole is the way, but reports here suggest that this makes the UI laggy. It’s grim.
stuaxo 6y ago
Can we buy some ads on this for the PiHole ?
- lostlogin 6y ago
  That’s a great idea. I’d chip in.
392c91e8165b 6y ago
ACR == Automatic Content Recognition "ACR is a technology that (with device-owner permission) reads pixels on a smart, internet-connected device screen as it delivers content to a . . . consumer—on a second by second basis. A recent Forbes article explains that the data is then shared with the manufacturer’s tracking software, matching them to a database that keeps track of local broadcasts and other [TV or video] content sources." https://www.admonsters.com/automated-content-recognition-acr-tv-televisionvideo/ https://www.admonsters.com/automated-content-recognition-acr...
mancerayder 6y ago
Samsung owner here. I use an Apple TV so I don't have to use the smart features of the TV and see ads, which I find offensive. But I'd rather reward a competitor for my next TV. Which brands don't do this?
- foepys 6y ago
  Sadly, all major brands seem to do this, even with their highest class TVs. Sony was the last bastion but recently Google pushed an Android TV update and now it also has ads on the home screen.
- noisem4ker 6y ago
  Ads in Smart TVs https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/ads-in-smart-tv https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/ads-in-smart-tv
- iagovar 6y ago
  Maybe toshiba? I have a 2012 model, and has no creap, but it may have changed.
Phillips126 6y ago
I spent around $1,200 on my 4K HDR Samsung TV a few years ago. It was great, but lately has been unbearably slow and frustrating to the point where we'd stop watching TV in the living room all together. Not a great experience. To try to remedy the issue (knowing it was slowed down by the disgusting ad platform), I installed a Pi Hole in the house to see if that would alleviate the problem. The TV felt a bit less clunky but Pi Hole seemed to have some issues with some of the installed apps - primarily Hulu, so I needed another solution. The Pi Hole statistics were terrifying at around 12,000 blocked Samsung requests per day (around 6-7 hours of shared TV usage). I researched Amazon FireSticks, Roku's, etc. I needed something easy for my family and kids to use (they are not as techy) and I wanted an interface that was buttery smooth. While I am very much not an Apple fan, last night I picked up the 4K Apple TV to test and so far it seems to be decent. There are some things I would change with the platform for sure, but it is overall pretty intuitive so my family can just pick up the remote and go. I factory reset my Samsung TV and completely removed the network from it. It was sad to see how responsive the TV was again after the reset. You can be sure I will not be buying another Samsung TV!
- vb6sp6 6y ago
  > The Pi Hole statistics were terrifying at around 12,000 blocked Samsung requests per day (around 6-7 hours of shared TV usage) The stats can be misleading. It's just trying over and over again when it has a failure. If the first attempt was successful, you would have a lot less requests.
  - calmworm 6y ago
    Sure, but is it trying 3 times per failed request or 100? Either way, it’s far too many requests.
- egberts1 6y ago
  Do another factory reset and when it comes time for the EULA question, just select “NO”. No more ads.
kemiller2002 6y ago
I propose a different solution to this problem. If I find an add on my tv, I don't buy the product. I tell the company that I don't buy it because of that. It's not perfect, but it does get some companies attention.
Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
Samsung M series phones from India are essentially subsidized for Ads, they have all major International data hoarder apps, Indian equivalents and their Samsung equivalents. Apps from Samsung's app store masquerades like security updates and constantly prompts to install. I made the mistake of buying them for my parents, even though they use their phone just for WhatsApp like most Indian parents, each of their phones generates ~2000 DNS requests/week which I'm dutifully sinking into PiHole.
- sidcool 6y ago
  That's true. I always use Stock Android.
- RealStickman_ 6y ago
  Did you check if lineageos available for those devices?
  - Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
    There could be, but as I mentioned WhatsApp is important for them and AFAIK WhatsApp updates are finicky with 3rd party ROMs as they explicitly detect them and ofcourse Playstore itself is not straightforward. Besides, Suprisingly Samsung pushes almost regular monthly android security updates for these devices.
    - RealStickman_ 6y ago
      LOS updates are usually monthly as well (as long as there's a maintainer around). Play Store can be gotten very easily by flashing one of the OpenGAPPS packages after the OS install. Not sure what problem you would have with WhatsApp, as it works fine for me and I arguably have an even more unusual setup than you would have with LOS and Gapps. (Using LOS, but with microG instead of Google Services)
ijustwanttovote 6y ago
I use a pi hole and it has been blocking my samsung tv ads for the past 6 months.
- donmcronald 6y ago
  You’re screwed as soon as they start using DoH.
  - rightbyte 6y ago
    I suspected HTTPS would become an antiprivacy tool as soon as Google started to push it so hard. It is funny how things turn out. Feel the need to evesdrop your own TV to ensure it doesn't rat on you ...
sidcool 6y ago
A Chromecast is a much better option than a internet connected TV.
dpc_pw 6y ago
Ad-based revenue should be heavily taxes, just like alcohol and tabaco products.
- ballenf 6y ago
  I think a federal excise tax that is earmarked for educational efforts about privacy would be incredible.
beastman82 6y ago
get a dumb tv and Nvidia Shield. No ads, very fast, updated regularly
3guk 6y ago
For those who use piHole or other network wide ad blocking, I've compiled a list of servers to block: https://factory-reset.com/wiki/Samsung_Telemetry_Servers https://factory-reset.com/wiki/Samsung_Telemetry_Servers Typically I would suggest not connecting your TV to any sort of internet connection - firmware updates don't typically tend to add or fix much on these devices. If you really have an issue, update the firmware, factory reset and then disable wifi / unplug ethernet.
- blibble 6y ago
  blocking like that works for now, but what's the plan for when they switch to DNS-over-HTTP? and host everything on ephemeral AWS addresses?
  - rightbyte 6y ago
    Maybe we need to whitelist ip:s instead? Imagine a browser extension that whitelist the ip of the site you go to in the address bar for like 30 minutes in cooperation with the router. All other ip traffic is blocked.
  - dastx 6y ago
    We go from pi-hole to enterprise grade firewalls and proxies and separation of nnetworks. That's my plan anyway.
gumby 6y ago
What are "linear TV" and "CTV"
egberts1 6y ago
Screw Samsung. I’m awaiting a review on how well today’s smart TVs work without Internet connection.
xoxoy 6y ago
Everyone realizes this is Roku’s entire business model as well, right? Their devices are sold basically at cost so they can serve you proprietary ads when you use their platform...
Vrondi 6y ago
Well, not buying any Samsung TVs, then. Feeling very good about having repaired the old Plasma TV this year!
jbverschoor 6y ago
This is my last Samsung TV, and device. No washers, fridges, and certainly nothing with an internet onnection.
dariosalvi78 6y ago
We should start hacking them and flashing open software on them.
petepete 6y ago
One of their execs states "delivering high quality products that put users at the heart of everything we do" in their LinkedIn summary. He doesn't seem to specify who his users are but he's clearly thinking about advertisers rather than customers, who he's treating like shit.
pierreneter 6y ago
Thinking about your MacBook show off ads while you are using it, and about Apple Ads. NO! Apple never does that. That's why I never use Samsung devices.
bob1029 6y ago
I'm still rocking a 65" Panasonic plasma connected to a laptop from the late 00's running an ancient build of ubuntu. That said, the TV still works flawlessly, even after everything around it died to 2 different lightning strikes. The old linux install still runs Hulu, Netflix, VLC, etc without difficulties, so I don't bother screwing with it. It sounds like if I have to replace my TV, I am going to have to look into more expensive commercial offerings which aren't subsidized by Orwellian monitoring solutions.
- ridiculous_fish 6y ago
  Plasma is so so lovely, take care of it. My 2010 plasma had a run-in with an unsecured Wiimote, and they can no longer be repaired. I got an LG OLED, which has ads, but they are successfully piholed for now. It's painful to manage because it also blocks ordinary features, like NTP.
CraneWorm 6y ago
buy dumb tvs, connect to computers. it's not that hard!
danmg 6y ago
I swore off Samsung products after my they updated the built in music player application on my ~3 year old S5. All of a sudden I was getting ads for Spotify trying to play mp3s from my SDCard. Now: I will only get chinese phones running stock android.
cascom 6y ago
Seems to me the answer is simple, just like cigarettes, food, or credit cards, there needs to be a big disclaimer on the front of the box: Waring: This TV shows ads that can’t be turned off Warning: This TV records what you watch, when and for how long and shares that with third parties I know I wouldn’t buy a TV with that warning on the front of the box
- pixl97 6y ago
  No, not just on the box. Every time the TV boots. One person might see the box. Every person that uses the devices needs to know it is full of bees.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
12xo 6y ago
People should know that regardless of how they consume TV, , their viewing habits are logged, tracked and ultimately sold. Cable, satellite, IPTV, web, mobile etc. Its all being gathered and parsed by dozens, if not hundreds of entities. The only exception is over the air... So getting upset at Samsung and plugging in a Chromecast or AppleTV or ROKU or whatever, is silly. They're all tracking you everywhere. But there isnt a lot of demand from a lot sources. So the ads are not nearly as tailored as digital. But they can be. And eventually they'll be as creepy as the banners you are served after browsing thingamajigs. For now, you'll likely just get served Direct Response scatter and the same branded ad over and over...
lmilcin 6y ago
I am so happy I decided to pass on "smart" TVs. Now I really get what the "smart" meaning really is.
ajhurliman 6y ago
I love the term "cord cutter" as if the Internet connection that plays their new media is somehow a different cord than the cord that their cable TV came in through.
himinlomax 6y ago
Do they do this in the EU? This is clearly not GDPR compliant, unless they get the customer's consent at every step.
amelius 6y ago
In Soviet Russia, the TV watches you. Anyway, when is it that we finally ban targeted ads?
brlewis 6y ago
Sounds like they sell ads but do not sell the data to others, much like Facebook, etc. Am I reading it right?
egberts1 6y ago
Samsung: Hear me ROAR at the customer!
pridkett 6y ago
We know that Samsung TVs aggressively try to connect from the internet and that they capture fingerprints from content played on them to show you ads. I, like a good number of other people, run an Apple TV, which has some ads, but nearly like Samsung (usually ads for content). Does Samsung perform content fingerprinting on streams not played via the Samsung software (i.e. Apple TV content coming over HDMI)? Does the fingerprinting continue to work if you run your audio through a receiver and send no audio signal the TV? I’m looking for ways to allow me to use my non-commercial Samsung TV (a nicer QLED TV from 2017) without having it spy on me. It’s on a VLAN that doesn’t allow outbound connections on my home network, but, honestly, I don’t trust Samsung.
woah 6y ago
I’m not familiar with “TVs”. Are these just large monitors? Do they start adding all this crap once you go over a certain monitor size?

410 points by amineazariz 6y ago

beprogrammed 6y ago

Now we need open firmware for our tvs

demarq 6y ago
You deserve a cookie :) You can't change the company, but we can definitely chose how we use their product
cjwebb 6y ago
How do we get started?
CyberDildonics 6y ago
Basic TVs are a power supply, a video board, a LCD screen, and a t-con board that can drive it. The power supply will also need to drive the LED backlight. Anyone could order the parts and put their own TV together, it really isn't as crazy as people think.

geerlingguy 6y ago

So you pay money for a television that displays ads. When will they pull a Kindle and sell special "ad-free" versions of so-called Smart TVs for an extra $100?

vxNsr 6y ago
which will still display ads sometimes, bec "consumers want it"

skizm 6y ago

I wonder if there is a market for dumb TVs. They basically don't exist today. Closest thing I could get was a Dell conference room monitor, which is $1200 for a 55 inch, and $4500 for a 75 inch. A far cry from the $700 I spent on my current 75 inch TV, but I'm strongly considering it.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
null_object 6y ago
There are brands - such as Loewe and Bang&Olufsen - who respect the end-user, and make fantastic TVs. But people generally don’t want to pay the premium amount that they cost.
- jmholla 6y ago
  I believe both of those brands can only be bought/received in their relevant stores of which there are few (my local Bang & Olufsen is permanently closed and I'm lucky to have had a local one) or none (in the case of Loewe which is only in Europe).
gtsteve 6y ago
A smart TV can be a dumb TV if you never connect it to the internet and just plug in whatever you want to it via HDMI. I have a 'smart' TV myself and the only buttons I use on the remote are power and input select. It's never seen the internet since I've had it. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before these TVs require 'activation' and frequent 'reactivation' before you can use them though. Alternatively they may perhaps start connecting to cellular networks, which would be a lot harder to evade.
- lgats 6y ago
  TVs in China already got around this by displaying ads even when not internet connected.
  - fredley 6y ago
    How?
    - Liquix 6y ago
      Preloaded in the firmware/hardware perhaps?

marsRoverDev 6y ago

I now have ads on my expensive Samsung. Teaches me right for not heeding the advice and getting as dumb a TV as possible. I should not need to run a PiHole to deal with this.

indysigners 6y ago

I’d rather have no telly at all than buying some crap Samsung tv for €2.000 only to see their programmatic advertising. Whoever at Samsung decided this must be drunk! But hey, I guess there still are enough people around who don’t care.

colejohnson66 6y ago
I bought a TCL Roku TV and thankfully the only ads are on the home screen where you select the input or app.[a] I can’t imagine watching video from an input and the TV deciding I want an ad on top of my movie. [a] I don’t delude myself into thinking this won’t change, but so far, I can just tune out (no pun intended) the ad on the side. Not to mention that the ads are of shows and movies, not products (which would be worse).
- secondcoming 6y ago
  There are specs for in-stream video advertising [0], as in, the provider injects a 'commercial break' into whatever you're streaming. These cannot be ad-blocked. [0] https://www.spotx.tv/resources/blog/spotxer/server-side-ad-insertion-ssai-all-of-your-questions-answered/ https://www.spotx.tv/resources/blog/spotxer/server-side-ad-i...
  - gruez 6y ago
    They can still be mitigated. At the very least you can blank the video/audio while the ads are on. Personally I'd just get the pirated version, which has the ads cut out for me. If you already paid for the service I don't see anything morally wrong with that.
  - donmcronald 6y ago
    > It provides users with an optimal, broadcast-like viewing experience that often provides high-quality video and ad creatives. Optimal? Lmao. This is the point where I’d be willing to pay for pirated content.
- ricksharp 6y ago

randorandomson 6y ago

I used to work in advertising, and it's remarkable how clueless and out the industry is about consumer feedback on this. There's constant back patting without realizing the actual ire shoppers have after spending $2k on a TV and still being sold as a product.

hyperman1 6y ago
It's wilfull. They havecto live ib denial, or they don't have a job. I know someone who started a job at a tobacco company. He went from 'of course they cause cancer, you're an idiot if you smoke' to 'everybody dies from something, it's not that bad, the media are against us, it's inconclusive'. He still won't smoke, though.
- lostlogin 6y ago
  I’ve noticed the same with those who work for weapons manufacturers. The perspective changes a lot when the money is good or the mortgage is large.
  - tk75x 6y ago
    I would rather not work for a company that contracts to the government, but here I am paying my student loans with their money because that's the job that was available.
GrinningFool 6y ago
As long as people keep buying it, what incentive to stop doing it?
egberts1 6y ago
Abject denial by a thousand paper cuts.

HHC-Hunter 6y ago

Imagine paying for a device only for it to advertise to you. I would compare Advertisers are to parasites honestly.

devmunchies 6y ago
Its not the advertisers fault, it's the product people at samsung.

ascar 6y ago

This should just straight out be forbidden and regulation is the only way out of it. Voting with money is not going to stop this as all major players with high-end devices are pushing this. On top of it, this information is usually a nice surprise after you already bought and setup the device. To even further push the boundaries, they are adding (more) advertising to devices that have been purchased years ago!

akerro 6y ago
> This should just straight out be forbidden and regulation is the only way out of it. Ok, but also on the internet, radio and in newspapers.
- yfy33 6y ago
  Best point in this thread and unsurprisingly, immediately downvoted by pearl clutchers. Just to be clear, you’re being downvoted for indirectly going after the livelihood of those who participate in this forum. Samsung getting into the game after SV Web taught them how to do it is making people realize, rather uncomfortably, that this is the world they’ve created now. It’s easy to abstract away commits to a repo when it comes to ethics, but remember, most of you reading this thread are at least complicit in building mass surveillance to make people who aren’t you more wealthy. You either work on it directly or sit at a company that works on it or participates in the ecosystem. That repulsion you feel for Samsung doing this is exactly how the rest of us feel now that your entire vertical is founded on trading my income and breast size and pregnancy status like I’m cattle. How you want microphones in every home in case I say “tuna would be nice” to make tuna magically appear 49 minutes later in a drone delivered package. How you’re perfectly comfortable tracking everything I do until it touches you when you kick back to watch TV. Then oh my God it’s horrible. Fuck your hypocrisy. It’s so transparent as to be hilarious. You can downvote me to silence me but keep in mind I’m just taking the time to tell you the other side. If you’d like to remain in a cushy bubble of “this is okay,” keep it up, but remember that you were warned you’re on the wrong side of engineering history and chose to attack the messenger instead of look inward.
- ascar 6y ago

namanaggarwal 6y ago

Made a mental note to buy only the dumb tv. If I want streaming options I would rather setup my own. Or for non-tech I would recommend dumb tv + apple tv or Chromecast

fredley 6y ago
Absolutely. If forced (as in there are no dumb tv options that are viable), I'd reluctantly buy a smart TV, but I'd never let it actually connect it up.
- checkyoursudo 6y ago
  This has worked for us so far. We don't watch broadcast TV, nor do we have cable/satellite. We hooked an internet-connected pi w/ kodi, and it's been going fine.
mattnewton 6y ago
It’s getting harder and harder to. I ended up buying a projector and a screen, large TVs are pretty much all infected with this kind of “smart os” and I don’t want a tv constantly asking to be connected to the internet so it can download adware.
- junon 6y ago
  This. When I was in California I tried to find a 4k TV that was "dumb". It was impossible.
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    I’ve been contemplating a computer monitor and a sound bar. I would prefer to have a remote with on/off and volume but I guess I can use my phone for most of that.
    - ohazi 6y ago
      Where can you get a 55 inch computer monitor?

freakynit 6y ago

What the actual fucking fuck!!! I fucking paid for it. I own it. That's my property. Isn't this illegal of Samsung to do it?

searchableguy 6y ago

I am waiting for some manufacturer to add a camera disguised for remote work or something similar and then use it to pause ads when you are not looking. Spotify already does this.

Macha 6y ago
Spotify reads a webcam to hide ads when the viewer is not looking at the app? Or it pauses ads when the app is muted?
- searchableguy 6y ago
  when you lower the volume too much, it pauses the ads.
  - hda2 6y ago
    What the fuck. I remember the "Please drink a verification can" joke that was floating around a few years back. Didn't think we'd be here so soon. Can you just use an old headphone with an audio slider and mute the ad that way? Either way, Spotify is now on my list of nope services.
    - DivisionSol 6y ago
      Wanted to comment on this. I see this very differently than the Samsung situation. Spotify provides music for ads, unless you pat the subscription. I am not offended that Spotify would do this for their “free”/ad-supported users. I pay for Spotify, I get no ads. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
      - jnurmine 6y ago
        Exactly this. Paid subscriptions have no ads. Furthermore Spotify has a handy family subscription (not sure if valid in all countries), which covers several persons living under the same roof. Disclaimer: I'm extremely happy with Spotify.

manuelabeledo 6y ago

I keep seeing people who argue that TVs would be notably "more expensive" if they didn't come with ads. Let's say that the average Samsung TV costs $1,000, ad revenue per person is around $30 a year, and the average lifespan of a TV is 10 years. I own a Samsung TV since 2016. I think they may have pushed 5 firmware updates since then. There is no way I can be convinced that Samsung needs to increase the price of TVs by 20%. Also, if that's the difference, why can't I just pay more and opt out? And why are other users in other countries not being shown ads?

pmontra 6y ago
Users of TVs, wow. I remember when they were not more difficult to use than a door bell. I'm always more convinced that I'll end up with a monitor, a Raspberry, a stereo speaker and possibly a DVBT decoder.
- gfxgirl 6y ago
  Do you know of a place to get an OLED (or better) 60inch 4k monitor that's a reasonable price?
  - pmontra 6y ago
    To be fair, I never thought about that: my current TV is 1080p 32 inches and I'm looking at it from a couple of meters. I wouldn't know where to place something twice as wide as that. Anyway, it's still OK and I hope I don't need a new one soon but I'll check the prices. Thanks.
- matheusmoreira 6y ago
  Where can I get a monitor that's as good as consumer TVs?
  - bee_rider 6y ago
    You can't get a monitor that is good at being a TV, as TVs are. You also can't get a TV that is as good at being a monitor, as a monitor is. At competitive prices of course. They are designed for different things.

smartisass 6y ago

Someone in a previous thread mentioned Sceptre TVs. They are dumb. Incredibly low priced but quality models available (55" 4k HDR HDMI 2.0 for $300) [1]. They have 30yrs experience. Seems a good company. Have high-end models too. [1] https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV/U550CV-UMRD-55-4K-UHD-TV-product1174category1category73.html https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV/U550CV-UMRD-55-4K-UHD-T... Anybody here have one?

adanto6840 6y ago
I do. 75" version. Was budget price, decent picture. Only gripe is that it's slow to turn on versus my other TVs. Is otherwise solid, though isn't used often, but have had it for ~2-3 years now I believe and no major complaints.
lostcolony 6y ago
I had one ~eight years ago. It worked fine. Not a cinophile though, so can't really comment on anything there. Am a gamer; no noticeable smearing and no detectable input lag greater than any other TV. We ended up getting rid of it after a move caused it to get damaged. Only thing really of note I can remember was it was fairly heavy, but I never compared it against other TVs being sold around that time so can't say it was due to the brand.
magicalhippo 6y ago
> quality models They advertise the display as HDR but the specs say its brightness is a quite poor 280cd/m^2. A proper HDR TV should have quite a bit higher brightness. I consider HDR to be a far greater improvement in visuals compared to 4k, and something which made my jaw drop the first time I saw it at home watching The Reverend on my Samsung top-end model.
- DiabloD3 6y ago
  You cant even get qualified as HDR below 400, and 400 is already ... a bit meaningless. Hollywood and TV authors content for 1000, and theres a mighty disconnect between these first few generations and what the content requires. To make this worse, my several year old U2414Hs can reach 280 at 100%. Those are inexpensive, standard, 1080p IPS office monitors, that have rather good color consistency for being low $2xx each... and also like 5 years old.

jeffbee 6y ago

Honest question: why is it appropriate for Apple to take 30% off the top of everything, but Samsung doesn't get 30% of Disney+ subs?

rightbyte 6y ago
I wonder what that stupid Rakuten TV button on my remote for "my" Samsung TV cost Rakuten to put there. I don't want a hardcoded quickbutton. I haven't seen any dashboard ads on it yet but that is probably becouse there is no regional service yet where I live. I wonder if this is worth it for Samsung in the long term to piss their customers off and get the image of a cheap rippoff brand.
- Mindwipe 6y ago
  > I wonder what that stupid Rakuten TV button on my remote for "my" Samsung TV cost Rakuten to put there. I don't want a hardcoded quickbutton. It's basically mandatory for Netflix at this point. Unless you're a very major provider they really want Netflix will not certify a device unless there's a Netflix button on it.
sarah180 6y ago
Appropriate? That's the wrong question. Everything in the market is negotiable. The question to ask is why Apple has more leverage. (I think you will see the answer is "many, many reasons.")
AznHisoka 6y ago
They most likely do if you sign up and pay via Samsung (instead of paying in the Disney website and logging in via Samsung). However, that's probably not an issue for most people. The concerns people have is around obtrusive advertising in their home screen.

magicalhippo 6y ago

I bought the top-end 65" model from Samsung a few years ago. Judging by this my next TV won't be a Samsung. One thing is how annoying most ads are. Ad networks has proven themselves time and time again to be excellent attack vectors for all kinds of nasty. I don't want that on a device I paid thousands of dollars for!

junon 6y ago

I had one of those TVs. The ads show up in the menu bar. I called them and told them I paid over a thousand dollars for this TV and do not want ads. They said they'd be happy to help me disable my internet connection. I was so dumbfounded at the petty response that I simply hung up. Lost a customer for life. I will never again buy a Samsung product.

munchbunny 6y ago
This, and the built-in voice assistant, is why I have a blanket rule that the smart TV will never touch the internet. If I want to stream things, that can go through the gaming PC that's right next to the TV.
- sunstone 6y ago
  I do the same except I use a small fanless NUC running Linux Mint which I control with the top of the line Logitech blue tooth "thumb ball" mouse. Aggravations vanquished.
  - MereInterest 6y ago
    Do you have any suggestions for a good mouse for it? I currently use a Logitech combination keyboard/track pad, but it has been connecting worse over the past few years, and I am looking for a replacement.
    - sunstone 6y ago
      Yes, I recommend the Logitech MX Ergo Plus trackball mouse. It's expensive but sometimes on sale. I like it because it doesn't have to "move around" like a regular mouse, so it can just sit on the arm of the sofa (or whatever). It takes about 2-3 hours to get used to if you haven't had a "thumball" before but after that you'll totally forget what kind of mouse you're using. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/logitech-mx-ergo-plus-wireless-trackball-mouse-graphite/6080600.p?skuId=6080600&intl=nosplash https://www.bestbuy.com/site/logitech-mx-ergo-plus-wireless-...
- 6y ago

snarfy 6y ago

Samsung really needs to just flush their entire software division. It's all garbage. Their android software is a frustrating joke. Tizen is a hot mess. Every issue I've ever had with a samsung product was with their software, and it's why I've sworn off the brand as a whole.

burnte 6y ago
They make amazing phones, but yes, their software overlay is trash, IMO. I have a Samsung TV too and don't have it connected to the network so I don't have to deal with the smart TV crap.
- bitlevel 6y ago
  Samsung's site selling Ads to those who buy them states clearly that TV's, Phones and Tablets are all monitored and viable options for delivery of ads, and the accurate determination of those who use them. See for yourself: https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/ https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/
  - ficklepickle 6y ago
    Their privacy policy is terrifying. They can access anything on a Samsung device. Some highlights: When you purchase a Samsung product, create a Samsung Account or register for or use a Service, you may provide us with personal information such as: -information you store on your device, such as photos, contacts, text logs, touch interactions, settings and calendar information -recordings of your voice when you use voice commands to control a Service or contact our Customer Service team -location data, including (1) the precise geolocation of your device if you consent to the collection of this data and (2) information about nearby Wi-Fi access points and cell towers that may be transmitted to us when you use certain Services. https://www.samsung.com/us/account/privacy-policy/ https://www.samsung.com/us/account/privacy-policy/
- simooooo 6y ago
  Hardware is nice but the software is a minefield of dark UI patterns. I think my S8+ had 10 or more prompts I had to reject to not have my data absolutely scooped up. Still found it syncin photos to some cloud service

amelius 6y ago

At least we're not paying Samsung a tax of 30% of the price of TV-shows.

troydavis 6y ago

If you own an Internet-connected TV, you've been seeing these for 2 years or more. I submitted it 11 months ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21427405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21427405) and it wasn't new then. The ACR-based retargeting audiences (https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/resources/tv-ad-retargeting/ https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/resources/tv-...) are probably the most offensive. For example: "Reach viewers who saw your competitor’s ads as quickly as 60 seconds after linear ad airing." Since they're capturing and analyzing screenshots from all TV inputs (even HDMI sources), they can target based on not just what you're watching, but which ads you've seen. Games, movies, apps, whatever - they're capturing the actual image you're seeing in realtime. I maintain a list of deep links to opt-out of data collection and sharing, mostly just because it pisses me off: https://simpleoptout.com/ https://simpleoptout.com/ . My site includes all of the TV manufacturers and TV OSes, but Samsung is easily the worst. As I wrote: "distinctly less customer-friendly than its peer companies. If it can be retained and shared, it probably is."

altdatathrow 6y ago
ACR sourced data sells like hot cakes in the alternative data world. You can literally know what an individual (“anonymized”) person watches and when.
- stevehawk 6y ago
  where/how does one purchase that data?
  - altdatathrow 6y ago
    inscape.tv (every vizio tv, that's why they're so cheap), nielsen (gracenote), ispot.tv, samba.tv, alphonso.tv, 605.tv, placed.com, truoptik, and others Many double as ad/analytics platforms but they'll gladly sell viewership data.
    - xtat 6y ago
      i once met the ceo of one of these and i cant describe on how many levels they seemed to be an outright tech and human hostile sociopath

notional 6y ago

So we can help you find and reach the missing millions - the cord-cutters, cord-shavers, cord-nevers and everyone in between We will find you and we will spam you. You can't hide from us. Were watching, were tracking. I really can't imagine myself ever buying a samsung tv. I mean they're quite blunt about their intentions, nothing to be surprised about when they're shouting about advising to cord cutters on their website.

fredley 6y ago

Reminds me of the Amstrad Emailer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_E-mailer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_E-mailer It started out with a few innocuous ads, then it got worse and worse until at one point it started displaying adult ads on a device that was on prominent display in people's homes. There was quite a backlash.

rahimnathwani 6y ago
I bought one of these, partly because the in-store advertising/info panel said it was capable of fax. I returned it the next day after unboxing it and discovering that the fax capability was actually just the ability to connect to an Amstrad-operated gateway, that used a premium-rate number, costing something like 50p/minute.

tombert 6y ago

I have purposefully not set up the smartTV features for any of my TVs, and on one of them I actually opened it up and removed the WiFi card. It's not exactly rocket science to plug in an NVidia Shield TV or an Amazon Fire Stick, so I don't really mind using those, but I don't like having any kind of implicit spying being done to me by my TV...I kind of feel like TVs should remain a "neutral" platform.

diegoholiveira 6y ago

That's why I do think we should ban digital ads. This didn't any good for humanity.

sarah180 6y ago

Inb4 Samsung+, a monthly subscription for those who want an ad-free experience. Recurring revenue is king.

hda2 6y ago
Don't worry. They'll add the ads back a couple of years later just like cable TV. Ads are far too inciting to be left on the table. Costumers be damned!

SoapSeller 6y ago

Don't connect your TV to the internet. I have ~5 years old Samsung smart tv. I've disconnected it from the network almost a year ago. I have cheap Android tv box for all my "smart" needs, I will probably replace it with a mini pc once it die. Those moves only makes me want more control over my setup.

johnnyAghands 6y ago

Sammsung can't even fix crippling a problem like not being able to adjust settings (https://eu.community.samsung.com/t5/tv/unable-to-move-up-and-down-in-settings/td-p/1671356 https://eu.community.samsung.com/t5/tv/unable-to-move-up-and...) -- they do not care about customers -- that's a fact. Also who the hell is saying TVs would be more expensive without ads? What a load of BS -- perhaps for small companies starting out, but Samsung? LOL I was on the fence about getting their frame TV, this pretty much kills it. Can something preconfigured like pie hole help sandbox these things?

nickthegreek 6y ago
My Samsung TV has 10,500 blocked connections from my PiHole in the last 24 hours and the TV is off most of the day.
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  Probably because it spins on retrying when it gets blocked.

arafa 6y ago

I suspect that one day we're going to have to start logging into our TVs, and that will be a terrible day.

mnw21cam 6y ago
The ITV and Iplayer apps on a Samsung smart TV require you to log in before showing any content. That day has already arrived.
- secondcoming 6y ago
  Don't they require that on the non-TV apps too?

buro9 6y ago

If you don't like this: 1) Buy an Nvidia Shield, Google Chromecast, or Apple TV 2) Connect that to your TV 3) Factory reset your TV and never connect it to the internet again

troydavis 6y ago
This really is the only viable option right now, and specifically only the Apple TV. The Shield and Chromecast are slight improvements, but of the mainstream TV choices, Apple TV is literally the only product that puts your privacy first.
- drewg123 6y ago
  And sadly, you need to trade your freedom for your privacy with AppleTV. I have a shield so that I can sideload apps like NewPipe and Kodi. I wish AppleTV would allow side-loading apps. That would be the best of both worlds.
  - beagle3 6y ago
    Apple TV does let you. You just have to reload them once a week, or factor an additional $100 into the price to only do that only once a year.
    - Answerawake 6y ago
      Is a there a good collection of Idevice apps somewhere that we can take and compile and use for this purpose? I am starting to go down the path of making my own simple versions of popular apps like Twitter or pulling the backend apis of other apps for stores all in an effort to remove as much tracking as I can while still keeping functionality. For example, there is a popular convenience store app that gives discounts on items such as coffee but in addition to the standard tracking, I also discovered code that indicates they are using bluetooth beacons to do in store tracking. Instead I am pulling their api to fetch the deals so I can ditch the app. Would be great if there is an existing collection so I can ditch more official apps more easily.

barascar 6y ago

please don't buy such tv full of ads.

AznHisoka 6y ago

It seems most people's concerns are around obtrusive ads on the home screen. Which I agree with, as those are very annoying and takes up way too much sense. However, there is another component to Samsung Ads - the video ads on their Samsung Plus Channel. For those that don't know, this channel consists of free content (usually B-level movies, old TV series, etc). Why does anyone have a problem if Samsung puts ads on this content? After all, it does cost them money to license most of this content, and if you don't want to watch those ads, you simply don't watch that content. Not to mention Youtube and everyone else has the same business model.

scrollaway 6y ago
> Why does anyone have a problem if Samsung puts ads on this content? You're the only person mentioning this avenue in the entire comment section. Safe to say, it doesn't sound like people have a problem with ads there.
effingwewt 6y ago
I'll take a shot. People are just done with ads. My samsung S20 ultra costs me ~1300, and has ads on the phone, as in the native Samsung apps for everything. And since none can be installed I now have worthless bloatware I had to replace with ad free working alternatives. Samsung tvs are hilariously bad with ads all over. On neither item is it possible to flash this crap away or disable it. People love to tout things being free for our data, but this is paying over $1k to still have some of the most intrusive ads ever. You must own one of their products to watch their ads with shows thrown in (Samsung channel) and this means you have paid for access to that channel and are still being served disgustingly intrusive ads(as others pointed out they screen grab and send home images of everything you watch on any input)
p49k 6y ago
No one has a problem with Samsung putting ads on a channel with free content that you can choose not to watch. But to take screenshots of what you’re watching on your tv every 60 seconds, upload it to their servers, and use it to build a profile of you so that the ads on that channel can be more targeted should land some Samsung executives in prison. Furthermore, pushing an automated software update to put ads inside the user interface of the TV where they previously didn’t exist should be illegal as well.

TomGullen 6y ago

Lone voice here I guess - I have a mid/high range Samsung TV and love it. Picture quality is brilliant and it looks good on the wall. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an advert on it from Samsung - where are they appearing exactly? I just switch between terrestrial TV and various apps like Netflix and Amazon on the bottom navigation bar and don’t think I’ve ever seen one. Might be wrong though!

GrinningFool 6y ago
They show for me in the navigation bar. Usually they look like just an icon in the bar for service you might have installed - except you don't.
Phillips126 6y ago
Like you I also had a mid/high range Samsung TV. The ads were not as obtrusive being only on the bottom left of the menu bar, but its the ACR that I needed to get away from. > Samsung Smart TVs have built-in Automated Content Recognition (ACR) technology that can understand viewing behavior and usage including programs, movies, ads, gaming content and OTT apps in real-time.[0] Literally every second or two, Samsung was performing some screen reading data collection and sending it off to their servers. My Pi Hole was capturing 12,000 blocked requests from this per day (6-7 hours of shared family viewing). This resulted in a poor user experience where I would feel the actually latency when trying to navigate around or open the menu. After factory resetting my TV it was so snappy again. Plugged in an AppleTV and haven't looked back. This form of advertising is incredibly invasive and disgusting to me, with constant spying/screenshotting of the content I am viewing. [0] https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/resources/tv-ad-retargeting/ https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/resources/tv-...
yarg 6y ago
Samsung's hardware capabilities are impressive - quantum dot active matrix displays (for example) present a technology that is fundamentally superior to anything they compete with. However, they seem to be rampantly anti-consumer - not only selling user data, but overcharging on everything they sell. They also hobble their hardware with software designed by a bunch of shit-flinging monkeys. They're also perfectly happy to engage in whatever legally dubious practices that they can get away with.

Softcadbury 6y ago

Everybody's talking about TVs in comments, but Samsung also mentioned mobile, any idea of the form it can take ? And I guess the next step is cars, as they are also more and more connected...

effingwewt 6y ago

Someone needs to create a localized faraday field with adjustable size for shit like this. But then the battle continues and they brick the device if it cant phone home with an endless reboot cycle or something. Why is this blatantly anti-consumer behavior not illegal? Companies continue to show us nothing is beneath them except for us.

lostlogin 6y ago
Wired connections are so much superior. Pihole is the way, but reports here suggest that this makes the UI laggy. It’s grim.

stuaxo 6y ago

Can we buy some ads on this for the PiHole ?

lostlogin 6y ago
That’s a great idea. I’d chip in.

392c91e8165b 6y ago

ACR == Automatic Content Recognition "ACR is a technology that (with device-owner permission) reads pixels on a smart, internet-connected device screen as it delivers content to a . . . consumer—on a second by second basis. A recent Forbes article explains that the data is then shared with the manufacturer’s tracking software, matching them to a database that keeps track of local broadcasts and other [TV or video] content sources." https://www.admonsters.com/automated-content-recognition-acr-tv-televisionvideo/ https://www.admonsters.com/automated-content-recognition-acr...

mancerayder 6y ago

Samsung owner here. I use an Apple TV so I don't have to use the smart features of the TV and see ads, which I find offensive. But I'd rather reward a competitor for my next TV. Which brands don't do this?

foepys 6y ago
Sadly, all major brands seem to do this, even with their highest class TVs. Sony was the last bastion but recently Google pushed an Android TV update and now it also has ads on the home screen.
noisem4ker 6y ago
Ads in Smart TVs https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/ads-in-smart-tv https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/ads-in-smart-tv
iagovar 6y ago
Maybe toshiba? I have a 2012 model, and has no creap, but it may have changed.

Phillips126 6y ago

I spent around $1,200 on my 4K HDR Samsung TV a few years ago. It was great, but lately has been unbearably slow and frustrating to the point where we'd stop watching TV in the living room all together. Not a great experience. To try to remedy the issue (knowing it was slowed down by the disgusting ad platform), I installed a Pi Hole in the house to see if that would alleviate the problem. The TV felt a bit less clunky but Pi Hole seemed to have some issues with some of the installed apps - primarily Hulu, so I needed another solution. The Pi Hole statistics were terrifying at around 12,000 blocked Samsung requests per day (around 6-7 hours of shared TV usage). I researched Amazon FireSticks, Roku's, etc. I needed something easy for my family and kids to use (they are not as techy) and I wanted an interface that was buttery smooth. While I am very much not an Apple fan, last night I picked up the 4K Apple TV to test and so far it seems to be decent. There are some things I would change with the platform for sure, but it is overall pretty intuitive so my family can just pick up the remote and go. I factory reset my Samsung TV and completely removed the network from it. It was sad to see how responsive the TV was again after the reset. You can be sure I will not be buying another Samsung TV!

vb6sp6 6y ago
> The Pi Hole statistics were terrifying at around 12,000 blocked Samsung requests per day (around 6-7 hours of shared TV usage) The stats can be misleading. It's just trying over and over again when it has a failure. If the first attempt was successful, you would have a lot less requests.
- calmworm 6y ago
  Sure, but is it trying 3 times per failed request or 100? Either way, it’s far too many requests.
egberts1 6y ago
Do another factory reset and when it comes time for the EULA question, just select “NO”. No more ads.

kemiller2002 6y ago

I propose a different solution to this problem. If I find an add on my tv, I don't buy the product. I tell the company that I don't buy it because of that. It's not perfect, but it does get some companies attention.

Abishek_Muthian 6y ago

Samsung M series phones from India are essentially subsidized for Ads, they have all major International data hoarder apps, Indian equivalents and their Samsung equivalents. Apps from Samsung's app store masquerades like security updates and constantly prompts to install. I made the mistake of buying them for my parents, even though they use their phone just for WhatsApp like most Indian parents, each of their phones generates ~2000 DNS requests/week which I'm dutifully sinking into PiHole.

sidcool 6y ago
That's true. I always use Stock Android.
RealStickman_ 6y ago
Did you check if lineageos available for those devices?
- Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
  There could be, but as I mentioned WhatsApp is important for them and AFAIK WhatsApp updates are finicky with 3rd party ROMs as they explicitly detect them and ofcourse Playstore itself is not straightforward. Besides, Suprisingly Samsung pushes almost regular monthly android security updates for these devices.
  - RealStickman_ 6y ago
    LOS updates are usually monthly as well (as long as there's a maintainer around). Play Store can be gotten very easily by flashing one of the OpenGAPPS packages after the OS install. Not sure what problem you would have with WhatsApp, as it works fine for me and I arguably have an even more unusual setup than you would have with LOS and Gapps. (Using LOS, but with microG instead of Google Services)

ijustwanttovote 6y ago

I use a pi hole and it has been blocking my samsung tv ads for the past 6 months.

donmcronald 6y ago
You’re screwed as soon as they start using DoH.
- rightbyte 6y ago
  I suspected HTTPS would become an antiprivacy tool as soon as Google started to push it so hard. It is funny how things turn out. Feel the need to evesdrop your own TV to ensure it doesn't rat on you ...

sidcool 6y ago

A Chromecast is a much better option than a internet connected TV.

dpc_pw 6y ago

Ad-based revenue should be heavily taxes, just like alcohol and tabaco products.

ballenf 6y ago
I think a federal excise tax that is earmarked for educational efforts about privacy would be incredible.

beastman82 6y ago

get a dumb tv and Nvidia Shield. No ads, very fast, updated regularly

3guk 6y ago

For those who use piHole or other network wide ad blocking, I've compiled a list of servers to block: https://factory-reset.com/wiki/Samsung_Telemetry_Servers https://factory-reset.com/wiki/Samsung_Telemetry_Servers Typically I would suggest not connecting your TV to any sort of internet connection - firmware updates don't typically tend to add or fix much on these devices. If you really have an issue, update the firmware, factory reset and then disable wifi / unplug ethernet.

blibble 6y ago
blocking like that works for now, but what's the plan for when they switch to DNS-over-HTTP? and host everything on ephemeral AWS addresses?
- rightbyte 6y ago
  Maybe we need to whitelist ip:s instead? Imagine a browser extension that whitelist the ip of the site you go to in the address bar for like 30 minutes in cooperation with the router. All other ip traffic is blocked.
- dastx 6y ago
  We go from pi-hole to enterprise grade firewalls and proxies and separation of nnetworks. That's my plan anyway.

gumby 6y ago

What are "linear TV" and "CTV"

egberts1 6y ago

Screw Samsung. I’m awaiting a review on how well today’s smart TVs work without Internet connection.

xoxoy 6y ago

Everyone realizes this is Roku’s entire business model as well, right? Their devices are sold basically at cost so they can serve you proprietary ads when you use their platform...

Vrondi 6y ago

Well, not buying any Samsung TVs, then. Feeling very good about having repaired the old Plasma TV this year!

jbverschoor 6y ago

This is my last Samsung TV, and device. No washers, fridges, and certainly nothing with an internet onnection.

dariosalvi78 6y ago

We should start hacking them and flashing open software on them.

petepete 6y ago

One of their execs states "delivering high quality products that put users at the heart of everything we do" in their LinkedIn summary. He doesn't seem to specify who his users are but he's clearly thinking about advertisers rather than customers, who he's treating like shit.

pierreneter 6y ago

Thinking about your MacBook show off ads while you are using it, and about Apple Ads. NO! Apple never does that. That's why I never use Samsung devices.

bob1029 6y ago

I'm still rocking a 65" Panasonic plasma connected to a laptop from the late 00's running an ancient build of ubuntu. That said, the TV still works flawlessly, even after everything around it died to 2 different lightning strikes. The old linux install still runs Hulu, Netflix, VLC, etc without difficulties, so I don't bother screwing with it. It sounds like if I have to replace my TV, I am going to have to look into more expensive commercial offerings which aren't subsidized by Orwellian monitoring solutions.

ridiculous_fish 6y ago
Plasma is so so lovely, take care of it. My 2010 plasma had a run-in with an unsecured Wiimote, and they can no longer be repaired. I got an LG OLED, which has ads, but they are successfully piholed for now. It's painful to manage because it also blocks ordinary features, like NTP.

CraneWorm 6y ago

buy dumb tvs, connect to computers. it's not that hard!

danmg 6y ago

I swore off Samsung products after my they updated the built in music player application on my ~3 year old S5. All of a sudden I was getting ads for Spotify trying to play mp3s from my SDCard. Now: I will only get chinese phones running stock android.

cascom 6y ago

Seems to me the answer is simple, just like cigarettes, food, or credit cards, there needs to be a big disclaimer on the front of the box: Waring: This TV shows ads that can’t be turned off Warning: This TV records what you watch, when and for how long and shares that with third parties I know I wouldn’t buy a TV with that warning on the front of the box

pixl97 6y ago
No, not just on the box. Every time the TV boots. One person might see the box. Every person that uses the devices needs to know it is full of bees.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

12xo 6y ago

People should know that regardless of how they consume TV, , their viewing habits are logged, tracked and ultimately sold. Cable, satellite, IPTV, web, mobile etc. Its all being gathered and parsed by dozens, if not hundreds of entities. The only exception is over the air... So getting upset at Samsung and plugging in a Chromecast or AppleTV or ROKU or whatever, is silly. They're all tracking you everywhere. But there isnt a lot of demand from a lot sources. So the ads are not nearly as tailored as digital. But they can be. And eventually they'll be as creepy as the banners you are served after browsing thingamajigs. For now, you'll likely just get served Direct Response scatter and the same branded ad over and over...

lmilcin 6y ago

I am so happy I decided to pass on "smart" TVs. Now I really get what the "smart" meaning really is.

ajhurliman 6y ago

I love the term "cord cutter" as if the Internet connection that plays their new media is somehow a different cord than the cord that their cable TV came in through.

himinlomax 6y ago

Do they do this in the EU? This is clearly not GDPR compliant, unless they get the customer's consent at every step.

amelius 6y ago

In Soviet Russia, the TV watches you. Anyway, when is it that we finally ban targeted ads?

brlewis 6y ago

Sounds like they sell ads but do not sell the data to others, much like Facebook, etc. Am I reading it right?

egberts1 6y ago

Samsung: Hear me ROAR at the customer!

pridkett 6y ago

We know that Samsung TVs aggressively try to connect from the internet and that they capture fingerprints from content played on them to show you ads. I, like a good number of other people, run an Apple TV, which has some ads, but nearly like Samsung (usually ads for content). Does Samsung perform content fingerprinting on streams not played via the Samsung software (i.e. Apple TV content coming over HDMI)? Does the fingerprinting continue to work if you run your audio through a receiver and send no audio signal the TV? I’m looking for ways to allow me to use my non-commercial Samsung TV (a nicer QLED TV from 2017) without having it spy on me. It’s on a VLAN that doesn’t allow outbound connections on my home network, but, honestly, I don’t trust Samsung.

woah 6y ago

I’m not familiar with “TVs”. Are these just large monitors? Do they start adding all this crap once you go over a certain monitor size?